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Honey Supering Methods

I have worked for a commercial operation for 6 years. My boss insists on a super as you go approach, (adding supers as they fill the previous one), while other beekeepers believe in putting all of their supers on at once. Is there any evidence to suggest that one method is better than the other? Thanks in advance.

Re: Honey Supering Methods

I have hives at my house and a place we own 150 miles away. At home I add supers as they need them. I tend to put several on at a time at the other place. The downside seems to be that they spread the honey around when they have a lot of space. When the flow is over I seem to have a bunch of partial supers to extract while here at home they are all nice and full. At the remote yard some hives will fill all of their supers, but other don't need as much space. Those hives are the reason I have the partial frames and partial supers.

Re: Honey Supering Methods

I agree. We also run in separate locations. (700 within 60 miles of our warehouse and another 700 about 200 miles away) we also are running half 10 frame in a mod and half 8 frame in a double deep. With the 10 frame we try use strictly medium supers and I like to add supers as we go when the previous box is at least half full. There had been years in the past where bad weather conditions screwed with our flow and we had out 3 boxes on at a time and the bees just filled a column up the middle of the three. I'd just rather not wast the time and energy of extracting 3 light supers when I could be extracting one heavy one.

Re: Honey Supering Methods

Re: Honey Supering Methods

I don't think that it makes a difference. The only way adding a super one at time would be better is if you put a fully drawn and filled frame into the next super to get the bees more interested in it.